Operation Barbarossa Through Clausewitz's Theory of War

Introduction: War as Political Instrument

"No one starts a war — or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so — without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war…" — Carl von Clausewitz

War is an act of violence intended to compel our enemy to fulfill our will, according to Carl von Clausewitz, and it is "not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means." Clausewitz's study Vom Kriege (On War) (1976) established numerous maxims on war; however, the idea that war is a political instrument and is used to carry on "political intercourse," as well as his other theories illustrated in On War, provides a useful intellectual framework through which to examine Operation Barbarossa — Hitler's German invasion of Soviet Russia on June 22, 1941. This paper examines how Operation Barbarossa functioned as a political instrument, in what ways Hitler used the operation as political intercourse, and how Clausewitz's theories on war can aid in understanding the cause-and-effect nature of war, with special emphasis on Clausewitz's ideas about the role of chance in war.

June 22, 1941 — a day Hitler predicted would cause the world to hold its breath: Operation Barbarossa. A mass of 3 million German soldiers (Ziemke estimates 3,050,000 men; Stokesbury estimates the total size of the Allied Expeditionary Force assembled in England for the Normandy invasion at 2,876,000, and Napoleon assembled at least 450,000 in June 1812 for the invasion of Russia — meaning Operation Barbarossa was on a much grander scale than Clausewitz could ever have predicted), more than half a million vehicles, and over 3,000 tanks were lined up along a 1,500-mile stretch from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It is considered one of the greatest military machines ever assembled in the history of war. Some think that Hitler was obsessed with a Russian invasion, as he wrote in Mein Kampf over fifteen years prior: "We terminate the endless German drive to the south and the west of Europe, and direct our gaze towards the lands in the east… if we talk about new soil and territory in Europe today, we can think primarily only of Russia and its vassal border states" (Copeland 124). Hitler was worried about the Russians eventually turning on him, and his 1939 pact with Stalin was meant to give Germany the time it needed to prepare for war. Thus, Operation Barbarossa took the U.S.S.R. by complete surprise — which is somewhat confounding, as Stalin had been warned of the invasion. There is no doubt that Germany's military strategy was seriously flawed: there were too many goals, three main targets rather than one, and the front was simply too vast to traverse effectively.

The Planning and Political Context of Barbarossa

Hitler signed Directive Number 21 on December 18, 1940 — known as Operation Barbarossa. The first sentence of the plan was quite frank: "The German armed forces must be ready before the end of the war against Great Britain to defeat the Soviet Union by means of Blitzkrieg" (Copeland 120). Viewed through Clausewitz's reasoning, the defeat of the Soviet Union was the sole mission — and "to defeat fully, the enemy must be disarmed, and disarmament becomes therefore the immediate object of hostilities in theory" (Clausewitz & Maude 2). Accordingly, the planning for this disarmament had an enormous preparatory stage. Hitler's rationale for turning against his Russian ally Stalin must also be examined, as must the way he used political discourse through the Non-Aggression Pact as a means to an end — invasion.

Josef Stalin was sufficiently forewarned about Germany's invasion, which makes it all the more confusing to comprehend how Operation Barbarossa could have come as a surprise. "Rapacious Panzer Groups, supported overhead by the Luftwaffe, recorded daily advances of 30 and 40 miles. The bulk of the Wehrmacht marched on foot behind, closing off pockets of many hundreds of thousands of Red Army captives" (Kirchubel 1). The Panzer groups were to carve up Russia while "the slower moving infantry and artillery were to force their surrender" (Clark 46). Hitler did not want to fight in the cities; after all, the battle of France was won by striking for the Channel rather than Paris.

Hostile Intention, Force, and the Non-Aggression Pact

There is reason to believe that Operation Barbarossa was the end result of a long-adopted program for expansion into Russia. Clausewitz identifies two motivations for war: instinctive hostility and hostile intention (Clausewitz & Maude 3), though he tends toward hostile intention as the primary motivator since it is the most general. Operation Barbarossa was an extreme act of force replete with a prolonged period of planning, and since it is an act of force, it also belongs to the realm of feelings in Clausewitz's definition. He states:

"If it does not originate in the feelings, it reacts more or less upon them, and the extent of this reaction depends not on the degree of civilization, but upon the importance and duration of the interests involved. Therefore, if we find civilized nations do not put their prisoners to death, do not devastate towns and countries, this is because their intelligence exercises greater influence on their mode of carrying on War, and has taught them more effectual means of applying force than these rude acts of mere instinct" (Clausewitz & Maude 4).

Operation Barbarossa was Hitler's surprise message of violence. It attempted to fulfill Germany's will by defeating Russia before Russia could defeat Germany — dictating its laws onto Russia — which ignited a reciprocal action that led, of course, to extreme fighting, i.e., war. Before this, Germany and Russia had been diplomatically on friendly terms, having signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (also referred to as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) shortly before Germany and the Soviets' joint invasion of Poland. The pact was something of a shock to most of the world, as the two nations held opposing ideologies and had long harbored mutual hostility. However, the pact heralded a new degree of cooperation between the two nations, while the secret agreement on spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and Finland had the important effect of ensuring security for Germany's eastern border (Stahel 33). For Hitler, the pact meant very little; it was simply a means to an end — appease Russia until Germany was ready to attack, and then proceed with the plan to take over the Soviet Union. It was a short-term arrangement within an overall plot to conquer Russia.

Clausewitz believes that in order to understand the true nature of war, one must be able to understand the tension between moral and physical forces. One cannot have a pragmatic theory for the conduct of war unless one understands the association between ends and means — "in particular the political end of war and the military means used to attain it" (Howard 34–5). This brings us to what was, in fact, one of Clausewitz's last and probably most important theories: "war was nothing but the continuation of policy with other means" — or more explicitly, "simply the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means" (Howard 36).

Conclusion: Barbarossa Judged by Its Outcome

Undoubtedly, Hitler was also drawn to the enormous potential of Russian territory, with its wealth of resources and great industrial capacity. He relied heavily on the strength and Blitzkrieg capabilities of his army. He also believed that Russian military leadership had been destroyed in the purges of 1937 through 1938, and that Russian soldiers would be bewildered by a highly mechanized war — having been thought to still rely on cavalry. Clark (138) does, in fact, include pictures of cavalrymen galloping into battle with drawn swords against Hitler's soldiers.

It can be argued that Hitler's failure in Operation Barbarossa had much to do with his irrational and vicious ideology, which severely limited his objectivity. This may, in fact, be the most critical factor in understanding his defeat. He underestimated the strength and patriotism of the Russian people — "the will power and fatalism and that readiness to accept terrible sufferings that are essentially Russian qualities" (Clark 42).

Clausewitz stated that "It is legitimate to judge an event by its outcome, for this is its soundest criterion" (Clausewitz 268). By looking at Operation Barbarossa through Clausewitz's framework, and taking into account Germany's defeat by Russia, it becomes clear that even though Hitler's planning of Barbarossa was impressive in its strategic dimensions, chance played an overwhelming role. Much was happening between Russia and Germany that was not fully apparent to either side, as both were engaged in political maneuvering. The Non-Aggression Pact was, as noted, nothing more than a politically constructed deterrence serving Germany's interests. There was never a genuine peace; the pact was simply a feigned alliance designed to give Germany time to prepare. For Germany, the pact meant nothing more than deceiving the other side. Hitler wanted a short, decisive operation — one lasting a single summer — but this kind of thinking is a way of underestimating the enemy's strength while overestimating one's own. This is another dimension of Germany's fundamental mistake.

Russia's capabilities were indeed undermined, and it is worth considering how successful defensive action can be when soldiers are fighting for their homeland. Is it possible that Russian soldiers were able to summon greater reserves of strength precisely because they were fighting for their own country and, essentially, their own freedom? For Clausewitz, war is defined by unknowns. It is used as political discourse, and yet, like anything else, there is no certain way of knowing what the outcome will be or who the victor shall prove to be.

Clausewitz stated that Russia was a "country, which could be subdued only by its own weakness and by the effects of internal dissension. In order to strike these vulnerable spots of its body politic, Russia would have to be agitated at the very center" (Grant 2). Had the Germans taken this advice seriously, the outcome of Barbarossa might have been very different.

Hitler's foreign policy remains an area of significant scholarly interest, and by examining Operation Barbarossa closely, one can see that it was merely a first step in his pursuit of European — or even world — hegemony. Trevor-Roper insists that Operation Barbarossa was just one step in Hitler's much larger plan. However, by examining it closely, it is possible to see how Hitler used war as a vehicle for political discourse. This was Hitler's overarching tactic — not solely in Soviet Russia, but something the world came to recognize as the engine of his planned hegemonic takeover of Europe and his systematic persecution of the Jews. Mein Kampf demonstrates that Hitler had a remarkably well-developed program of thought long before he attempted to execute it.